You just have to love Spam emails. I just got sent one with the subject line

How to have better sex with your wife !

In the main body of the email the answer

22 Cows, 2 Goats in Car in Souath Africa

 

Dam, so that’s where I have been going wrong .. right time to hit the farmers market !

Catching up on news this morning I noticed a story on the LA Times regarding swine flu. It would seem not even the pigs are safe !

Meanwhile, the virus is continuing its rapid spread through the Southern Hemisphere, infecting increasing numbers of people and at least one pig

As many of you know I had my first Lake District Experience last weekend. One of things I was really looking forward to was the chance to get some photography on the pipe. It’s always difficult when traveling with Nicola to devote to much time to chimping, but I must admit she was very patient with me (even with me bringing out the ND100 long exposure goodness)

I’m quite pleased with some of the first photos I’ve published on Flickr, but of course if these were being marked  in school I guess the teacher would put - could do better.

For me landscape photography is something that I’ve not really explored, mainly as the land around Cambridgeshire is so flat and dull which makes it difficult to frame appealing shots. The weekend in the lakes however as pricked my interest in this area of photography and it’s one I can see myself doing more of over the coming months. This will probably means lots of driving to distant places, and probably those drives will take place at stupid-oclock in the morning to catch the best light (then again some would saying writing a blog post pre-6am is stupid-enough-oclock)

Two areas that I I need to re-visit if I’m thinking of doing more landscape photography are filters and light metering. On the filters side I need to learn when to use which filter, especially when talking about ND Grads which help to bring out highlights in contrasty images. Almost hand-in-hand with filters is the subject of light metering. I must admit when I first got into photography I read and practiced a lot in this area, but in recent times I’ve gotten a bit sloppy again. Time to check out some online tutorials as well as reviewing the most excellent book - Understanding Exposure (highly recommended)

One of the things I love about landscape photography is when you go to a specific spot where you know the light could just be perfect. You frame the shot, then wait. Now this wait could uncover some spectacular lighting or it could turn into a damp squib. Then again if you choose a nice enough spot it’s no hardship to be sitting waiting, flask of tea and some chilled tunes on the iPhone.

To whom it may concern (or rather listen) at O2 or Apple,

I count myself as a bit of a gadget nut and early adopter so I was looking forward to checking out the new features with both the new iPhone (now called 3GS as we know) and the 3.0 software.

When the original iPhone launched 2 years ago I didn’t pick one up as I felt there were too many features missing. Last year however the majority of these features had been addressed and I picked myself up the iPhone 3G (on launch day, number 1 in the queue in Cambridge may I add)

One of the features that was missing, even with the 3G version was the ability to record video. Now others who had hacked / jail-broken their iPhones proved that the hardware supported video recording. Then a few weeks ago I was given special access to Qik, even with my non-jailbroken phone - again proving that video recording was possible with the current generation hardware.

I am therefore pretty pissed that the 3.0 software update for the 3G version of the iPhone does not include the video recording capabilities, with this only being available with the 3GS version. I now see that Kyte are one of the first 3rd parties to release a video recording application on the App Store. Of course this won’t be avilable for the 3G iPhone owners. I actually had a bit of a discussion with Daniel Graf from Kyte on this. He of course held the offical line, but to me it’s clear that Apple have the developers round the short and curlies in regards to what features they need to enable / disable to be allowed onto the App Store.

The easy solution would be to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS, but of course when I bought the iPhone last year I had to take out an 18 month contract. Apple of course seem to be on a 12 month release cycle which means that no matter what I do I will always be out of sync. To upgrade to the 3GS I need to buy my way out of my current contract which I’m not prepared to do. If however I wait until January, when my contract expires it will be less than 6 months until yet another new iPhone is release and then I’ll only be 6 months into my contract.

The solution? Well perhaps it’s time to think about a different Phone. It’s a real shame that you, Apple / O2 force me down this path. Then again I’m sure you don’t really care. Perhaps if on the off-chance that someone from Apple is reading this you can explain why video is still disabled on the iPhone 3G.

So I see in a bid to help save BA their Chief Executive has asked staff to considering working for nothing during the month of July. I guess there will be some who will consider this, if in the long term it does indeed save thier jobs. I on the other hand have a better idea.

I have a few days holiday that I need to burn up and was trying to decide what to do with them - how about they let me be a cabin boy on their long haul routes for 10 days. Of couse I would expect free travel and accomodation at the destiniation, but in turn I would be willing to work at least 3 long haul flights, that’s 6 flights in total.  And yes  I know I don’t have any cabin crew experience, but given that I’m a very frequent flying onboard I think I know the routine. And don’t worry in the case of an emergency I will be first out the door. If the door won’t open, don’t worry I’ll have a good crack at making a Nigel size hole in the fuselage - more than enough for everyone to get out. You see with me you not only get a pair of cabin crew hands, you also get someone who others will be able to follow off the plane in the event of an emergency. Finally at the end of the shift I’ll be happy to get rid of surplus alchohol from the plane as well. No job too small for me.

So. Willy,  if you fancy a free pair for hands for 3 flights then get in touch. I’ll be standing by with my pull-along case and fancy pants at the ready.